PARIS, 27 MAY 2008-A dance festival of
companies from Finland, Germany, Italy and Spain, as well as
from France, was a leading draw recently at the Theatre du
Chatelet in Paris. Their common link, besides the fact that
they were from Europe, was that all were set to attractive
musical scores and favoured extravagant staging, glamorous
costumes or particularly inventive use of videos.

Events opened on an extremely high note with the Tero Saarinen
Company featuring the superb Finnish dancer and choreographer
himself in his 2002 creation,
Hunt, set to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.
Saarinen spoke of his fascination for the score which brought
out the violent, primitive and animal side of man at the same
time as the spiritual and sacred, explaining that he felt the
music related to the interior conflicts of the individual. His
interpretation was therefore that of the person offering
himself as a sacrifice rather than being the victim of society.
The result was a stupefying solo, in which music, dance and
video images merged together in one sublime whole.

Tero Saarinen : Hunt
Photo: Marita liulia

Saarinen, his expression concentrated and unsmiling, appeared
on stage in a long, transparent white skirt, part man, part
beast, part celestial being, and for the next thirty-three
minutes which passed all too quickly, stunned the audience with
his lyrical, intelligent choreography allied to the power of
his interpretation. Full of grace and vitality and moving with
quicksilver gestures in the first part of the piece, he
crumpled to the ground as his solo continued.

The subsequent filmed effects were astonishing beginning with
the moment he raised his arms to be swallowed up by a video
which descended from above his head. Images were then projected
onto his body, the man himself becoming part of the video.
Spatial being or chrysalis, the Finnish dancer was
extraordinary.

Tero Saarinen: Hunt
Photo: Marita liulia

The programme continued with two versions of Stravinsky's
Noces. Mariage, a work Saarinen created for
the Opéra National de Lorraine last December, was presented
immediately after Bronislava Nijinska's legendary work,
Noces .

Nijinska's stylised 1923 work, classical yet modern, one of the
greatest ballets of the twentieth century, is a series of four
tableaux showing a Russian wedding which recreates the peasant
ritual of Holy Russia. Bride and bridegroom have been chosen by
their families and have no choice but to obey their elders.
They are simply perpetuating a tradition in which love plays no
part. The young bride knows only too well that she will simply
be used as a servant in her new family; that's the way it is.

Tero Saarinen Company : Noces
Photo: Marita liulia

Noces was beautifully interpreted by the company, with
Marie-Séverine Hurteloup in the role of the submissive bride
and Miroslaw Gordon as the reluctant but resigned bridegroom.

However, the event of the evening lay in the brilliant
programming of Tero Saarinen's version of the same work, this
time showing a rebellious bride dressed in black imploring her
parents to give her freedom of choice. The young couple is
aggressive and there is greater group pressure.

Mariage, as Noces before it, is a highly
theatrical production, but this time the singers, the choir of
the National Opéra of Lorraine, are on stage, some thirty to
forty people also dressed in black and standing in a
semi-circle on a raised ramp, their arms folded. Rigid and
threatening, they look down on the dancers in fluid white
dresses. The use of space is masterly and the visual impact
awesome. Soprano Khatouna Gadelia, mezzo-soprano Katalin
Varkonyi, and tenor Avi Klemberg with baritone Jean Teitgen
gave memorable performances.

Tero Saarinen Company: Mariage
Singers, the choir of the National Opéra of Lorraine
Photo: Marita liulia

The reluctant bridegroom is dragged in front of his fiancé as
she stands, head bowed, despairing. He claws at her as the
singers turn their backs and the bridal couple, movingly
interpreted by Morgan De Quelen and Phanuel Erdmann slowly inch
their way forward.

The Finnish dancer has created an elegant, intensely powerful
work in this brilliant re-reading, in which Stravinsky's music,
coming from the stage rather than the orchestra pit, sounds
incredibly different. Saarinen, who is surely becoming one of
today's most interesting choreographers, succeeded in bringing
out all the sadness, pathos and fears for the future inherent
in the score.

Despite the freshness of the Ballet d'Europe, the next
programme, opening with Folavi, an abstract work by
director, Jean-Charles Gil, held few surprises. A backcloth of
rushes blowing in the wind left little doubt that the
accompanying music would be Vivaldi, and the easy-on-the-eye,
pleasant choreography was well within the reach of his young
interpreters, who were quick, neat and light.

A second more ambitious work, Mireille, set to the
score of Gounod's opera arranged by Raoul Lay, told the story
of the heroine's doomed love for Vincent, her penniless young
suitor. Confronted by her father's refusal to let her marry
him, she dies in her lover's arms, exhausted by her long walk
to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, where she had gone to implore the
help of the saints.

Inspired by the poem by Frédéric Mistral, Gounod's 1864 work
was set in Provence where the company was founded and seemed
tailor-made for the troupe, for the history of the company,
created by Gil in 2003, is of
particular interest.

Ballet d'Europe:MireillePhoto: DR

It is a professional troupe composed of 14 dancers from all
over the world, aged between 20 and 32, and is supported by the
FSE (Fonds Social Européen ). It is frequently cited
as an example to be copied as Jean-Charles Gil is ensuring that
the dancers are being prepared for a career after their
retirement and workshops have been set up as well as classes
which are being opened to the general public. Gil is not only
dealing with the problems dancers face when they are out of
work, but also bringing this most ephemeral of the arts to the
fore by making it an option to be taken at the French
baccalaureat at certain high schools in Marseilles.

Aterballetto, the modern Italian ballet company was founded as
an experimental troupe at Reggio Emilia in 1979, but since
Mauro Bigonzetti took over in 1997, it has justifiably become
the leading dance company in Italy. He improved the technical
level of the troupe and gave them a new repertoire. Now
directed by Cristina Bozzolini with Bigonzetti as principal
choreographer, the company chose to bring two of the latter's
creations to Paris.

Wam, an abstract piece and set as the title implies,
to different scores by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is a tribute to
the composer. It is a baroque celebration, sensuous and vulgar
rather than erotic, but with its earthy, heavy choreography and
weaving muscular bodies, perhaps not to everyone's taste.
Bottoms, albeit covered, are thrust out rather too often, and
in their fussy, elaborate, and highly-coloured costumes by
Maurizio Millenotti, the male dancers are made to appear very
effeminate and dominated by the women despite the fact that
they spend much of their time opening their legs in a most
disagreeable way. The choreography is needlessly complicated,
acrobatic and jerky and after the first ten minutes, it is hard
to discern what Bigonzetti wants to say. In contrast, the
second ballet on offer, Cantata, hit the audience like
a bomb! It was wonderful!

The dancers, glorious, exploded onto the stage, accompanied by
four magnificent singers from the group Assurd, Cristina
Vetrone, Lorella Monti, Enza Pagliara and Enza Prestia. The
choreography, so much more inventive than in the first piece,
burst with all the colours, sights and sounds of Southern
Italy, and showed the dancers of this splendid young troupe at
their best.

Aterbaletto: Cantata
Photo: Roberto Ricci

The men were Men, the women, Women and the work dealt with the
various jealousies, quarrels, passions and seductions possible
between them. Couples did not meet in sedate traditional
folk-dances, but clashed in a vibrant celebration of the joy of
being alive.

The solos were beautiful, a central pas de deux
impressive, while the groupings, complemented by superb
lighting effects, were effective. The long, fluid costumes for
the women by Helena Medeiros were in shades of violet, prune,
red, mauve brownish-grey, bordeaux and grey, and one can only
hope that this gifted designer will continue her successful
collaboration with the troupe.

Aterbaletto: Cantata
Photo: Roberto Ricci

But above all, there was the charm and singular beauty of the
four female singers, whose music told stories of working-class
culture from the historic areas of Naples and gave meaning to
the whole. They sang Neapolitan songs that have rarely been
heard outside the land of their birth, both popular and
traditional works, accompanied by the ladies playing on a
concertina, two tammorras, a tambourine and castanets. At some
moments, it was difficult to know where to look, so much was
happening on stage. A work full of energy, joy and passion!

Patricia Boccadoro writes on dance in Europe. She has
contributed to The Guardian, The Observer and Dancing Times and
was dance consultant to the BBC Omnibus documentary on Rudolf
Nureyev. Ms. Boccadoro is the dance editor for
Culturekiosque.com .